After reading Renauds Anjoran’s article at Jacob Yount, I shook my head and said, “Wow, Transparency is the new normal.” He is advancing this thought based on seeing the millenials who love and even demand transparency. So the companies need to provide it as their workers and this growing customer base demands it. They are the future.

I started to talk about Transparency in the 90’s in China as it was so lacking in this very opaque country. If we cannot talk about real things, then how can good decisions be made? I see many companies feel at a loss to achieve transparency in China where I see it is readily reachable. If you decide to emphasize transparency, then you can find a way to hire people who like it as well.

How Do We Get to Transparency in China?

If you assume transparency and put it on the walls in Chinese, it will not help. Focusing to hire with transparency and rating people on their adherence to transparency will have results over time.

If you have a team like this in China then you have a chance to achieve it in your supplier base.

Apple and Nike and other huge buyers of contract manufacturing in China use draconian systems to achieve a kind of transparency. They do this at immense cost as know Transparency is the new normal.

For the rest of us, hiring and managing for transparency is a more reachable path. Then ISO9001 and like systems can actually have life and not be just a paper push. Real transparency is not out of reach if we really care to get ready for the new normal.